Team USA suffers shocking exhibition basketball loss to Nigeria

[catfish1957]

https://www.foxnews.com/sports/team-usa-exhibition-basketball-loss-tnigeria

<snipit>
Team USA suffered a tough pre-Olympics loss to Nigeria on Saturday night, 90-87.

It was the first of five exhibition games for the U.S. ahead of the Tokyo Games in a few weeks. The U.S. previously beat Nigeria in the 2012 Olympics, 156-73. Team USA had never lost to a team from Africa before Saturday, according to the team’s website.

[Smokin Joe]

I bet the Nigerians weren't taking a knee during their national anthem....

Best to play ball and leave politics alone.

[Wingnut]

It was the token white guy on the team and trumps fault.

[dfwgator]

I'm rooting for Slovenia.

[catfish1957]

Australia hands Team USA men's basketball another shocking defeat ahead of Tokyo Olympics

https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/australia-hands-team-usa-mens-basketball-another-shocking-defeat-ahead-of-tokyo-olympics/

 

[Hoodat]

I would rather see amateurs who have a hunger for the game play instead of a bunch of prima donna millionaires who look at this as unpaid work.

[skeeter]

Gee that’s too bad. Yawn.

[HoustonSam]

I am hard pressed to identify a group of people who more seriously need to be taken down several notches than American athletes.

When I was a teenager and watching the Montreal 1976 Olympics I remember being emotionally invested in the success of America's athletes, particularly Sugar Ray Leonard, and seeing the great Cuban Teofilo Stevenson as a bad guy.  Nowadays I'll just about pull for anyone to defeat most American athletes.

Obviously this is a generality and not true in every case - the American athletes who get the most recognition tend to be those who take the most outrageous anti-American positions; the ones we don't hear about are people we would continue to support with pride.  How many articles were written about the first and second place finishers for the women's hammer throw in the recent Olympic trials?

But simply being on the American team no longer means representing me or anything I believe in.  It's another indicator that "United States of America" is a fiction; the country is not united.  It's past time we reverted to the pre-Civil War practice of using plural verb forms for "United States" - the United States are, not the United States is.

[Wingnut]

You know what separates the winners from the losers?

[Hoodat]

When I was a teenager and watching the Montreal 1976 Olympics I remember being emotionally invested in the success of America's athletes, particularly Sugar Ray Leonard, and seeing the great Cuban Teofilo Stevenson as a bad guy.

I remember the 1972 basketball fiasco like it was yesterday.  At the ripe age of 8, any delusion I had of a fair and just world was crushed after watching that.

[BassWrangler]

I am hard pressed to identify a group of people who more seriously need to be taken down several notches than American athletes.

When I was a teenager and watching the Montreal 1976 Olympics I remember being emotionally invested in the success of America's athletes, particularly Sugar Ray Leonard, and seeing the great Cuban Teofilo Stevenson as a bad guy.  Nowadays I'll just about pull for anyone to defeat most American athletes.

Obviously this is a generality and not true in every case - the American athletes who get the most recognition tend to be those who take the most outrageous anti-American positions; the ones we don't hear about are people we would continue to support with pride.  How many articles were written about the first and second place finishers for the women's hammer throw in the recent Olympic trials?

But simply being on the American team no longer means representing me or anything I believe in.  It's another indicator that "United States of America" is a fiction; the country is not united.  It's past time we reverted to the pre-Civil War practice of using plural verb forms for "United States" - the United States are, not the United States is.

Well said. I bet we're the only country of there whose athletes demonstrate outright disdain for the country they are supposed to be representing.

[dfwgator]

I remember the 1972 basketball fiasco like it was yesterday.  At the ripe age of 8, any delusion I had of a fair and just world was crushed after watching that.

They still haven't picked up their Silver Medals to this day.

[Hoodat]

They still haven't picked up their Silver Medals to this day.

I remember watching an interview of one of the team members years later.  The reporter asked him if he ever thought about going to Switzerland to pick up his medal.  He responded, "My medal is somewhere in Russia.  Their medals are in Switzerland."

[mountaineer]

I am hard pressed to identify a group of people who more seriously need to be taken down several notches than American athletes.

When I was a teenager and watching the Montreal 1976 Olympics I remember being emotionally invested in the success of America's athletes, particularly Sugar Ray Leonard, and seeing the great Cuban Teofilo Stevenson as a bad guy.  Nowadays I'll just about pull for anyone to defeat most American athletes.

Mr. M is the same way, and I'm pretty close to that point. The Olympics was supposed to be about pure sport, for the love of sport (that is, amateur). The Soviets and East Germans ruined that concept long ago, and permitting NBA players and other pros to participate just sealed the deal. It's hard to cheer for anyone who seems not to give a rat's rear end about the country for which they play, or even for whether or not they win. What do they care?